Three people injured after gas explosion, fire damage Winthrop home; survivor tells of house collapsing around her

By Brian R. Ballou and Alli Knothe, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent

WINTHROP -- An explosion and fire destroyed a house on Pleasant Street in Winthrop. Three people were injured. (Brian R. Ballou/Globe Staff)

WINTHROP -- She woke up to chaos.

A woman who survived an explosion at her Winthrop home this morning described waking up to find her house collapsing around her.

“I was sleeping and my bed fell in -- the floor fell in -- and I was halfway in the basement,” said Shari Begnor. “My sister’s room is above mine and her room was caving in on top of me.”

“There were flames everywhere. It was just chaos. I’m just glad everybody is OK and I still have my family,” she said.

Officials said the cause of the gas explosion and fire, which injured Begnor, her sister, Quiana Hobson, and her stepfather, Ken Hobson, was under investigation.

Neighbors started calling 911 at 8:07 a.m. to report “a structure fire and numerous explosions’’ at 627 Pleasant St, said Winthrop Fire Chief Paul Flanagan.

The three people had gotten out by the time rescuers arrived, said Flanagan.

Ken Hobson sustained first- and second-degree burns to his face and hands, but his injuries were not life-threatening. He was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital. The two women were treated for “respiratory distress,” he said.

“It was clearly a gas explosion, but we are in the midst of determining the exact cause,” State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan said, standing on the front lawn of the burned house this afternoon. He said the house would have to be demolished because it sustained massive structural damage.

Chief Flanagan said Ken Hobson’s wife, Sherian Hobson, had smelled gas when she was working out on a treadmill in the basement before going to work in the morning. As her husband drove her to work, she told him about the smell and told him to call the gas company.

When Ken Hobson returned home, he called the gas company. While he was on the line, the home blew up, Flanagain said. The two women were in their beds at the time of the explosion.

Flanagan said firefighters found the house on fire on all floors, and heavily damaged from the explosion.

Neighbor Joe Murphy said he awoke to the sound of fire engine sirens and then looked out his window to see his neighbor’s home being consumed by flames.

“When I first saw it, I could actually see the flames in the living room,’’ Murphy said in a telephone interview. “They were taller than people.”

Murphy said gas company workers went into his home this morning around 9 a.m. to check his home for gas leaks. They told him his house was safe, but also said they did not know the cause of the fire.

“They said they don’t know what the hell happened over there,“ he said.

Another neighbor, Kenneth O’Connell, said, “There was an extremely loud explosion, and I looked out my window and saw that the whole side porch was blown off. ... I called 911 and ran out to make sure that all the residents were outside and they were.”

David Graves, a spokesman for gas company National Grid, said the company did not have workers in the neighborhood this week. He said the company was researching the property and the neighborhood to see if there have been calls about problems recently.

“We still don’t have confirmation on the cause,’’ Graves said.

He said gas has been shut off to the damaged house, but continues to be supplied to the neighborhood.

The MBTA dispatched a bus to provide temporary shelter to people displaced by the fire.

All the walls of the house appeared buckled this morning. The side of the house sustained the most severe damage, with a screen porch blown away from the structure.

Shari, the survivor, said her stepfather helped her out of her room. Then she ran screaming out of the house, along with him and her sister.

She said the family has been living in the yellow house with maroon shingles for about a decade and has poured thousands of dollars into renovations over the years.

Noticing a family photo lying on a table that had been brought out of the house, she picked it up and dusted it off. Tears started rolling down her cheeks.

“Everything can be replaced, but people can’t,” she said.